Magnetic skyrmions are topologically stable whirlpool-like spin textures that offer great promise as information carriers for future spintronics devices. In order to achieve this purpose, it is necessary to realize conventional detection of single skyrmions in nanostructured, which, however, is still unexploited so far.

A research published recently reported that researchers detected annihilation and creation of single skyrmion in single-crystal MnSi nanowires through using conventional electrical method for the first time. In the study, researchers achieved that by measuring magnetoreistance in ultra-narrow MnSi nanowires and quantized jumps in magnetoresistance versus magnetic field curves were observed. Through tracking size dependence of jump number and Monte Carlo simulation, researchers inferred that skyrmions were assembled into cluster states with tunable number of skyrmions. These study results enable an electric reading of number of skymions in cluster states, which place a solid foundation to realize skyrmion-based memory devices.

This study was conducted by Prof. TIAN’s study team from High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CHMFL) through cooperation with Prof. JIN's study team from University of Wisconsin-Madison and Dr. ZANG Jiadong from Johns Hopkins University.

The study above was published in Nature Communications, which was entitled “Electrical Probing of Field-Driven Cascading Quantized Transitions of Skyrmion Cluster States in MnSi Nanowires”.

                     (a): The SEM image of sinle-crystal MnSi nanowires; (b): The magnetoresistance as a function of the magnetic field.

 The jumps correspond the annihilation or creation of single skyrmion.(Imaged by DU Haifeng)

Contact:

Prof. DU Haifeng, Ph. D

High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Chinese Academy of Sciences

350 Shushanhu Road

Hefei, Anhui, 230031, P. R. China

Tel: 0551-65595123

Email: duhf@hmfl.ac.cn